Faces of Fairness

August 28, 2013

If I haven’t mentioned Fairness West Virginia to you before, I’d be surprised. This is an organization that I’ve become involved with that certainly deserves mentioning. Fairness WV is a group here in the Mountain State that educates, represents and lobbies for the LGBT population within West Virginia. And it is a group that is made up of a bunch of amazing, hard working individuals that are willing to stand up and fight for the rights of people that don’t necessarily have a voice of their own at times.

I actually do the merchandising for some of Fairness WV’s items. Shirts, window decals, koozies and bags all come out of my house here in Wheeling, much like my Handmade Escapade gear. They’re all made one-by-one by yours truly and packaged with the same amount of passion for handmade…this time, with a little extra passion for the fight for equality within this gorgeous state of mine.

Up until Monday, I hadn’t met any of the Fairness WV people in a face-to-face manner (they’re based out of Charleston, WV). Lucky me, this has finally changed. Fairness has been touring with a “Faces of Fairness” Film Tour and they’ve been hitting up cities all over West Virginia. Yay for me, they came to Wheeling! Whoop whoop!

It’s always such a treat to meet people in person that you’ve been chatting with by all means of technology. Email, Facebook, text messaging….the works. At last, I got to give them all big hugs. It was SO STINKING AMAZING to finally meet Dusty, Scott and Casey in person. Seriously. They are all amazing men and I’m honored to be a long distance friend of theirs. They’re super intelligent, well spoken and each is a great representation of what a normal, hard working, family oriented person of the LGBT community is within the borders of West Virginia. (Plus they’re all ridiculously handsome, yes??)

You guys are amazing. Seriously. Come visit me soon!Before I get on a tangent about how much I love these boys….

I mentioned that Fairness WV is touring the Faces of Fairness film all over West Virginia. There are a few more stops on their 12-city tour that you might be able to catch if you’re in the area.

I recommend attending if you can. I loved the information that I was given during the Wheeling Film Tour on Monday as well as the discussion following the film. And there can never be enough discussion related to strides toward equal rights. Never. Talk about it with everyone you can and encourage them to watch the film I’m posting below. It’s only 15-minutes long but it’s excellent.

I just hope that Casey didn’t notice the tears welling in my eyes while watching these people’s stories. I’m a sad sap, haha. I think I’ve mentioned that before. But I also just really love LOVE. I love that people have passion for each other and want to share their experiences and lives with their soul mate. And I don’t think it’s fair that their relationships are deemed less valuable because West Virginia doesn’t recognize them as important as a “traditional” family.

The woman at the very end of the video said it best:

“Fairness is love.”

Because at the end of the day, it all boils down to love. Loving yourself, loving the people and world around you. And loving the fact that we are all here, we are all different and we all matter. Rock on, Fairness WV! Thanks for providing a voice for the people of my state!